Peter R. Orszag
Director,White House Office of Management and Budget
For The Wall Street Journal

This week confirmed two important facts - that health-care costs are the key to our fiscal future, and that even doctors and hospitals agree that substantial efficiency improvements are possible in how medicine is practiced.

The numbers speak for themselves. The Medicare and Social Security trustees' reports released this week show that health-care costs drive our long-term entitlement problem. An example illustrates the point: If costs per enrollee in Medicare and Medicaid grow at the same rate over the next four decades as they have over the past four, those two programs will increase from 5% of GDP today to 20% by 2050. Despite the attention often paid to Social Security, spending on that program rises much more modestly - from 5% to 6% of GDP - over the same time period. Over the long run, the deficit impact of every other fiscal policy variable is swamped by the impact of health-care costs.

Spiraling health-care costs are not just some future abstraction, however. Right now, families across America who have health insurance are seeing their take-home pay reduced and their household budgets strained by high costs and spiraling premiums. State and local governments also are feeling this pinch. And the growing weight of health costs on state budgets translates into an inability to make investments in areas such as education, hindering our overall economic growth.

Keep Reading...

Joe Klein
Time.com

In his book The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama offered a paean to the glories of flying on private jets. He lovingly described his first trip on a Citation X: "The plane took off, its Rolls-Royce engines gripping the air the way a well-made sports car grips the road ... I could see how people might get used to this." The punch line of the story was that Obama's staff asked him to give up the practice, which was legal, because he was the Democrats' Senate point man on ethics reform. "It was the right thing to do, but I won't lie," he admitted. "The first time I was scheduled for a four-city swing ... flying commercial, I felt some pangs of regret." The traffic was awful. His plane to Memphis was late. But then he found himself in an intense conversation about stem-cell research with a man suffering from Parkinson's. "These are the stories you miss, I thought to myself, when you fly on a private jet," he concluded.

Read more...

Ben Smith
Politico.com

Despite his past denunciations of the “perpetual campaign” — and “political hacks like Karl Rove” — President Barack Obama’s version of change doesn’t include banishing hardball politics from the environs of the Oval Office.

Like presidents before him, Obama has imported pieces of his campaign into the White House, ranging from his own Rove, David Axelrod, to two dozen campaign staffers who will serve as liaisons with agencies. A top Iowa aide, for instance, is moving to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Read More...

David Gewirtz | BIO
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

The Bush White House email story just gets weirder and weirder. In his inauguration speech, President Barack Obama told us, "The time has come to set aside childish things." Within the United States Government, apparently old habits die hard.

Apparently, even though the Bush administration is now out of office, the Bush administration's legal team responded late last week to a federal judge's emergency order as if they were still representing the Executive Office of the President.

For those keeping track, this was just a few days after telling the Judge there was no "there is no distinct entity known as the 'Executive Office of the President'."

Making matters more surreal, the lawyers sent a notice of "compliance" to Judge Facciola's emergency orders that didn't actually comply with a single one of Judge Facciola's orders. Plus they responded to Judge Facciola's emergency order to preserve the outgoing President's records before he left office days after President Bush left office.

Let's do the time warp

Last week, I wrote about Federal Court Magistrate Judge John Facciola's emergency preservation order, instructing the then Bush White House to preserve email messages and turn them over to the National Archives.

Shortly, after, Justice Department attorney Helen C. Hong, then under the signature of Assistant Attorney General Gregory G. Katsas, speaking for the Bush administration, pretty much told the judge complying with the emergency order wasn't going happen, it doesn't need to happen, and Facciola had no right to issue the order anyway.

Now, however, we have a most interesting "Notice of Compliance", still from Helen Hong, but this time under the signature of Acting Assistant Attorney General Michael F. Hertz. What makes this document most interesting is its date: January 22, 2009 - two days after America changed administrations.

Here's what we're looking at. The attorney working for the old President is apparently still employed by the Justice Department, but now under new President.

Meanwhile, that attorney, who now works for the new President, is still working the case of the old President, even though President Bush is out of office. She's still working the case for the old Executive Office of the President, even though there's now a new Executive Office of the President.

Still with me?

These are not the records you're looking for

While President Bush was still President, Judge Facciola set out a long list of what he wanted preserved and how. Although the then White House responded days before he left office with an almost complete refusal to comply, here we now have a "DEFENDANTS' SECOND NOTICE OF COMPLIANCE".

The main document is five pages long, consisting mostly of declarations about the size of files sent to the National Archives and how, due to either their size, complexity, or "sensitive information that could be disclosed in many of the file names", can't be provided to the court.

The file names were too sensitive? Really? Was there a file named "ListOfSecretAgentsDoNotRead.txt"?

What was provided to the court by the vestigial Bush administration was an inventory of backup tapes. Not an inventory of what was on the tapes. Just a list of tapes.

Imagine you have a pile of hundreds of movie DVDs and you give each DVD a number. Then, upon being asked for an inventory, you provide just that list of numbers. You don't provide the names of the movies, a list of scenes, or information about any of the extras that usually come with DVDs. All you provide is a pile of numbers from which no useful information can be ascertained.

This is pretty much what the Bush administration lawyer (who now seemingly works for the Obama administration Justice Department) did. She returned a list of tapes, with no detail about what's on each tape.

The Judge had instructed the Executive Office of the then-President to "identify with reasonable specificity and by number or other specification the contents of the tape or media, i.e. '#1234 Backup Tape October 1, 2003' or 'Flash drive of e-mails' followed by the work station number or the work station user's name."

Nowhere in the documents returned to the Judge is any information about what's on the tapes, and certainly no details on whose email was backed up on those tapes or other media. There are a few line items listing dates, but they're 2006, 2007, and 2008. There's absolutely nothing listed from the 2002-2004 period we're all curious about.

Fundamentally, there's not enough information provided in the "DEFENDANTS' SECOND NOTICE OF COMPLIANCE" to tell if any of the email messages that constitute "the most fundamental and useful contemporary records of the recent history of the President's office." were actually preserved.

Legal specific vs. technical specific

Even though Judge Facciola clearly didn't get back from Hong information with the granularity he requested, he probably wasn't as specific in his instructions as he could have been.

He instructed the Bush administration attorneys to "identify with reasonable specificity" the various media contents. Judge Facciola did give some examples of what he wanted. But his order didn't provide a technical specification detailed enough prevent any disclosure "wiggle-room". Taking advantage of this, the defendants did not provide the level of information needed to allow the Judge confirm all Presidential records had, in fact, been transfered to NARA.

A useful technical specification probably should have asked for a listing of every file by name on every tape and disk and server, and other backup or other media not mentioned. It should have specified that each originating machine be identified, not only by code name, but by basic configuration.

It should have specified that originating machines be identified, also by spec and configuration and each user machine workstation should have had its own data table, complete with who used the machine during what periods. This is not as hard as it might seem, since the Windows server network keeps track of users and passwords, and often keeps a record of the system policy for each machine.

Further, for files that contain information containing records or data objects (like PST files with email messages or database files with many related lines of data), a disclosure spec should include a listing of each file and a list of all the records contained within. That listing should probably be provided in an Excel spreadsheet if relatively small or a machine readable file (of a specified, defined file format) if particularly large.

Finally, there's no reason to accept any response that tells you there's too much information. Helen Hong specifically cited a 6 terabyte database provided to NARA. It would be just as easy to copy that onto a few large hard drives and provide them to the Judge as well.

After all, with 1 terabyte external hard drives running as low as $124.00 at Wal-Mart, it can't be all that difficult to transfer the files and provide them to the Judge.

Open questions

There are a lot of remaining open questions in this case. For example, who's now the defendant? Previously, it was the Executive Office of the President. Is it still?

Or is the defendant now the future The George W. Bush Presidential Center, the nearly half a billion dollar library being built for the 43rd President on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas? Or is the defendant now Mr. Bush himself?

Does Ms. Hong now act on behalf of the Obama administration Justice Department or is she representing some vestige of the Bush administation?

Ms. Hong reports approximately 70,000 "disaster recovery back up tapes" were transfered to the National Archives, along with "26,000 copies of disaster recovery back-up tapes created for potential restoration projects".

She also says "The Office of Administration ('OA') also transferred a 6 terabyte database containing a list of every file contained on each one of the copied 26,000 disaster recovery back up tapes."

But are these lists of files or are these the full and complete record of email traffic that took place under Presdient Bush? Do these meet the requirements of the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act?

Since even the file names were supposedly too sensitive for someone as high up in our government as a federal court judge, we may never really know.

Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear more from David Gergen on AC360° at 10pm ET.

David Gergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

In his first three working days in office, Barack Obama has seized the reins of presidential power in smooth, almost flawless fashion. Whether that will be enough to conquer the forces arrayed against him, however, remains very much open to question.

On the economy, his most urgent challenge, he has followed up quickly on transition planning by bringing in bipartisan leaders of Congress today and will soon hold a special meeting with Congressional Republicans alone. One of the first mistakes of some past presidents has been to dismiss the concerns of the opposition. Because Obama has gone far beyond tradition, GOP leaders left the White House this morning endorsing his call to have a stimulus bill by the President’s Day recess in February.

Even so, chances remain high that the President’s economic plans will hit serious snags in Congress and even if passed, may not work. Democrats in the House, where partisanship has been rancorous, seem little inclined to seek a truly bipartisan stimulus bill, as Obama has wanted. And while some Senate Democrats are trying to re-craft the House bill to make it more pleasing to Republicans, others like Dick Durbin are now airily saying that it makes little difference how many Republicans sign on. (Perhaps they are taking a cue from Obama himself, who reportedly made it clear to the GOP at the White House today that he was in charge of negotiations because “I won”.) If partisan attitudes take hold on both sides, Obama can kiss off his hopes of getting dozens of Republicans on board in the House and more than 20 Republicans in the Senate – and in turn, the bipartisanship he needs on TARP, Detroit, and many other bills to come will be progressively tougher.

An even larger concern is whether the stimulus package will truly work but instead, as columnists Paul Krugman and David Brooks worry about in the New York Times today, will be too slow and too filled with pork, leading to scandals down the road. The Obama team promised Congressional leaders today that 75 percent of the bill would be pumped into the economy within two years and that they would impose strict oversight. We shall see. So far, one of the biggest questions hanging over the new administration is its managerial capacity. A typical comment in D.C.: They have wondrous all-stars on board, but where are the managers? And where are the CEOs who know how to make things happen in the business world? Insiders will be watching closely as this economic saga unfolds.

Meanwhile, Obama has also gotten off to a near textbook start in foreign policy. In quick succession, he is unwinding the Bush policies and approaches that have drawn intense criticism both at home and abroad: Iraq, Guantanamo, torture, the Middle East, and the centrality of the State Department more generally. By fulfilling his campaign promises so quickly, Obama is increasing public confidence in his international leadership – something that could have a spill-over effect in bolstering confidence in his economic plans, as well.

For critics of the Bush years – and that includes many mainstream foreign policy players - yesterday was as close to perfect as one can imagine. Not only did the President reverse policies on Guantanamo but he did so carefully by setting up a six-month review to ensure that the process of shutting it down and settling the future of detainees does not unleash a bunch of red-hot terrorists (example: the former Gitmo detainee who has emerged as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen).

Moreover, the President and Vice President both went to the State Department on the first day that Hillary Clinton was there as Secretary of State, signaling to Foreign Service officers, demoralized by budget cuts and marginalization in recent years, that they will be central to his international policies in coming years. As one who worked briefly at State during the Clinton years, I can personally attest that this kind of attention will be a huge shot in the arm among career officers.

Then, too, Obama and Clinton announced yesterday the appointment of two superior diplomats as special envoys: George Mitchell to the Middle East, Richard Holbrooke to Afghanistan and Pakistan. How good are they? Well, each of them has been a serious candidate to be Secretary of State in his own right. Had Hillary Clinton been sworn in as President this week, it is highly likely that Holbrooke would have been her choice as SecState. Mitchell and Holbrooke were responsible for two of Bill Clinton’s biggest successes, the first in negotiating peace in Northern Ireland, the other in negotiating a settlement in Bosnia. Remember that George W. Bush didn’t pay much attention to the Middle East at first and always rejected the idea of a special envoy there. Obama has jumped in feet first in his first 72 hours on the job.

Still, the question remains: will these early moves by Obama actually start to put out the fires in these parts of the world? We won’t know for a long time – and until he makes some very tough calls that could go awry. Will the Clinton-Mitchell team pressure Israel to make major concessions, as Israeli conservatives now fear, and if so, will Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria call off their terror tactics? Can anyone put all the genies back in the bottle? No one knows.

And then again, there are the growing questions about how well the Obama administration can manage itself. From afar, the lines of authority among the White House, Clinton, Mitchell and Holbrooke seem very tangled. Who will manage all these heavyweights who have minds and egos of their own? His staff says that Obama can do it, but isn’t that what they say about managing his economic team, too?

So, even as he wins deserved praise for his smooth start as President, more questions than answers are swirling around Barack Obama. He seems to understand them and, still a surprise, he also seems to remain totally confident about the future. We have all started a crucial journey.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is welcomed to the State Department on Thursday.

Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell are both here – in the Secretary of State's outer offices.

Holbrooke was working the crowd of State Department staff who turned out to welcome Secretary Clinton, shaking hands and doling out hugs to everyone, including administration heavywieghts of presidents past–former Deputy Secretaries of State John Negroponte and Strobe Talbot and former Defense Secretary William Cohen.

Mitchell smiled politely but stayed close to the senior State Department officials handling Middle East issues.

_______________________________________________
Update 2:29 p.m.

President Obama is here at State Dept., meeting with Secretary Clinton and other senior state dept staff, as well is the two senior envoys he is going to name – George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke.

Some color: there is a packed, standing-room-only crowd of approximately 500 - senior staff, a group of lucky civil and foreign service employees are here. Deputy Secretary Designate James Steinberg is here too, fresh from his conformation hearing this morning.

Samantha Power, a close confidante and foreign policy aide of Obama's who resigned from the campaign after calling Clinton a monster, is in the front row – apparently they have kissed and made up. Martin Indyk, who reportedly was inching for some Mideast envoy role but didn't appear to have gotten one is here, along with a group of middle east experts.

The one person who is noticeably absent is Dennis Ross – who was widely expected to take a senior role in the administration dealing with Iran but rumors are circulating that it may not be the plum role he was looking for. Stay tuned.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Ed Henry
From Senior White House Correspondent

Another sign of transition - According to White House officials, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel this afternoon signed a memorandum sent to all agencies and departments to stop all pending regulations until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama Administration.

Attorney General designate Eric Holder will likely face tough questions during Thursday's nomination hearing.

Arlen Specter and Edwin Meese III
For The Wall Street Journal

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Eric Holder's nomination for attorney general has failed to focus on the threat to constitutional rights posed by what is known as the "Holder Memorandum." Near the end of the Clinton administration, this memo changed Justice Department policy regarding the formerly unquestioned right to counsel and to confidential communication with one's counsel.

The Holder memo allowed federal prosecutors to demand waiver of these rights in exchange for characterizing a corporation as "cooperating in an investigation" so that it would not be charged with a crime itself. It thus handed prosecutors a powerful weapon in white-collar criminal investigations.

Read More...

Highlights from Sen. Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing for Secretary of State.

Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton addresses the Senate foreign relations committee.

Sen. Hillary Clinton poses for pictures with Sens. John Kerry, right, and Dick Lugar, left.

Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

In the confirmation hearing today, Clinton said she would work not only with government agencies, but NGOs and the private sector to address world problems because "we all have a lot of work to do."

"It's really all hands on deck," she said.

But Clinton stressed she wanted to boost the resources of the State Department, because there is no replacement for seasoned diplomats. She said that the Defense Department received 10 times more the resources going to the State Department and conducts a lot of work in the field traditionally handled by State, which in effect means the DOD is "recreating the State Department."

She acknowledged a frustration with the bureaucracy of the State Department – and didn't want a "pile of paper," but rather new strategies, ideas and best practices from not only her staff, but also asked for suggestions from the senate committee itself.

On Iran
Clinton said Iran's nuclear program is "of great concern," and that there is an ongoing policy review on how to approach it. "Our goal will be to do everything we can through diplomacy and the use of greater sanctions," she said.

On sanctions, she said "we won't know what we are capable of achieving until we begin work." Says they are committed to working with friends and adversaries in the United Nations, making a case to the UN security council that "a nuclear-armed Iran is in no one's interest."

Clinton says "its hard to predict how hard it will be," but promised best efforts. Said leaders in Iran are many and unpredictable – says they are looking for "effective and appropriate pressure" to persuade Iran and prevent it from moving forward.

President-elect said "it is going to be the United States policy to purse diplomacy with all of its tools to do everything we can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. " Says no option is being left off the table.

Looking at a "range of possibilities", but Clinton says we will consult with allies and doesn't want to take them by surprise. She quoted Obama saying, "we are going to try new approaches." She says Iran's neighbors in the region, like Israel, have a legitimate concern.

On personal diplomacy with Iran, says she wanted to wait until she was in office and had a chance to consult with others. "it is very clear to me we do not have as full a brief as we need" from other allies.

On an interest section in Tehran and putting the Ambassador back in Syria – she said "these are matters that are part of our policy review" and she will be addressing them as soon as she is in office.

When Kerry pushed she said, "I think I got your drift, Mr. Chairman."

At another point during the confirmation hearing, Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) talked about Bob Levinson, a former FBI agent missing in Iran – and said the U.S. believes he is in a secret prison. (CNN has reported widely on Levinson in the past). Sen. Nelson said that if Iran wanted better relations with the US, releasing him would be a good place to start.

Clinton said "it was an extraordinary opportunity for Iran to make such a gesture," and his release or Tehran allowing contact with him would "make it clear there is a new attitude in Iran, as there will be with the Obama administration."

On Turf Battles
Senator George Voinovich, while praising the strong national security team chosen by Obama, voiced concern about "turf" battles and discussion about "who does what" to avoid stepping on toes.

Clinton didn't answer that part of his question, choosing to focus on his comments on climate change.

On the Taliban
Later, in reference to Taliban sympathizers, Clinton said "they (Taliban sympathizers) want to maintain an attitude that keeps women, as I said in my testimony, unhealthy, unfed, uneducated. And this is something that results all too often in violence against these young women both within their families and from the outside." This is not culture. This is not custom. This is criminal."

"Diplomacy trumps ego"
Senator Barbara Boxer – who decimated current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice four years ago in her confirmation hearing on the Bush administration's record on the Iraq war, said Obama's nomination of Clinton shows that "diplomacy trumps ego and politics and said to Clinton in accepting the post "you set your ego aside for world peace."

On Darfur
And when the subject of Darfur came up in the hearing, Clinton said there is a "great need to sound the alarm again on Darfur."

She called the current regime a brutal and corrupt government. "It's important the world know we intend to address this in the most effective way, " she said, noting the administration is undergoing a review and would be pushing the UN Security Council to act.

Clinton said she wants to push the early deployment of the African Union (AU) force. She said would speak about other options, like no-fly zones, and more sanctions.

"There is a lot under consideration," Clinton added.

On Afghanistan
Clinton says Afghanistan is the "greatest priority for the President-elect." She noted Obama's "more for more" strategy – more US support must come with more NATO support, more support from the Afghan government and more political development.

She says there is a need to look at Pakistan and Afghanistan together and "imperative" to work with both of them.

Clinton praised the current Pakistani government, which she said is "much more aware that this is their fight, not just ours."

She said that Obama administration will present "alternatives" to the current approach in the region. And "I anticipate having a civilian review and a civilian presence."

On North Korea
Clinton said the Obama administration would move forward with multi-lateral diplomacy on North Korea through the Six Party Talks.

She said she had several lengthy conversations with Condoleezza Rice about about the status of the talks aimed at ending North Korean nuclear program. She called the talks "a framework the President-elect and I believe has merit," but noted it also provided an opportunity for bilateral contact between North Korea and the US .

She said she and Obama believed the talks and the role China is playing, as well as South Korea and Japan offers "a vehicle for us to exert pressure on North Korea that is more likely to alter their behavior."

"We are looking at all of the records of the negotiations up to this date," she said. Clinton stressed the goal was not just to end the North Korean nuclear program but to stop Pyongyang's role as a proliferator of its weapons and nuclear technology to other nations, pointing out North Korea's likely cooperation with Syria and Libya, among other nations,

Clinton said she had "no illusions" about the challenge, which would take "tough reality-based diplomacy" and promised the Obama Administration would be mounting "a very aggressive effort to determine the best way forward."

Jeffrey M. Jones
Gallup

A new Gallup Poll finds 65% of Americans saying they have a favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton, the highest rating for her in almost 10 years.

Clinton had not had a favorable rating above 60% since 1999, after having been consistently above that level during the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to the impeachment but ultimate acquittal of husband Bill Clinton. That included Hillary Clinton's all-time high 67% favorable rating immediately after the House of Representatives voted to impeach the president in December 1998.

Read More...

Arne Duncan listens as President-elect Obama announces him as his choice for education secretary.

Margaret Spellings
The Washington Post

Dear Arne Duncan,

Congratulations! I am so pleased that President-elect Barack Obama has asked you, a fellow reformer, to serve as the next U.S. secretary of education. Your experience as chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools will be invaluable in continuing the work we in the Bush administration began doing to close the achievement gap and provide all children, regardless of race, income level or background, the skills needed to succeed.

This is an important and hopeful change from the past. For decades, our nation took what I call the "ostrich approach" to improving schools: Instead of facing challenges, we buried our heads in the sand. Thanks to the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, we now measure student achievement annually so that we can take an honest look at our problems - the first step toward solving them.

Read More...

Kerry is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Anne E. Kornblut and Glenn Kessler
The Washington Post

When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) gavels the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to order today and welcomes Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to her confirmation hearing as President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to be secretary of state, he will mark the ascendance of a new triumvirate dominating the foreign policy arena.

The hearing will also call attention to a particularly awkward tangle of relationships.

Kerry, who first put Obama in the national spotlight by inviting him to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, endorsed Obama over Clinton early in the 2008 presidential primaries, much to the irritation of the Clinton campaign. But Obama chose his defeated nemesis for the top diplomatic position - a job that Kerry openly sought with the backing of many prominent Obama supporters. Instead of joining the Obama Cabinet, Kerry became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, with the goal of leading it back to its former prominence.

Read More...

Editor's Note: Don't forget to watch CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen talk further about President-elect Obama's cabinet tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

David Gergen | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

With the final pieces falling into place today, a much clearer picture has emerged of the men and women who will gather around the table when Barack Obama convenes his new cabinet in Washington. By any measure, this cabinet will be one of the most pragmatic, talented, and politically experienced of any in recent decades - the makings of a dream team. Even so, some serious questions remain about how effective they will be – questions that can only be answered by the passage of time.

Altogether, Obama will have some 21 people at his cabinet table – himself, his vice president, his White House chief of staff, the heads of 15 executive departments, as well as the heads of the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Trade Representative. Whether he will invite others to the table such as his “czars” is still unclear.

But we do know now the identity now of the first 21, and one thing that stands out – especially in the political tug of war between left and right – is how centrist and pragmatic most of them are, especially in the areas of economics and national security. For weeks Washington has been wondering whether Obama would govern from the center-left or from the left. His appointments suggest that on a few issues, he will please the liberal elements of his base – global warming and unionization – but on most others, he will be more of a moderate progressive. That’s what he promised during the campaign, and that is what he is delivering in his appointments.

Beyond a diversity of race, gender and ethnicity – something we saw with the early Clinton and Bush appointees, too - there will be a decidedly Midwestern flavor to Obama’s cabinet conversations. No less than seven of his appointees were raised in the Midwest, compared to 5 from the East Coast and four from the West. (Surprisingly, he has recruited only one Southerner, the former mayor of Dallas.)

Obama has also sought out a team that is more highly educated than any in recent years. No less than 19 of the 21 have graduate degrees. Four have PhDs (Stephen Chu, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Peter Orszag,; if Larry Summers is at the table, that would make five). Seven were educated in the Ivy League. And one, of course, has a Nobel prize in science – a first for a presidential cabinet (Chu in physics).

When some praised the early Obama choices as “the best and brightest”, New York Times columnist Frank Rich properly recalled that the phrase is actually one of opprobrium from the Vietnam War, blaming advisers of elite educations for getting us into a quagmire. House Speaker Sam Rayburn complained about John Kennedy’s team that “I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.”

A fair criticism then but not now. It is striking that in selecting people of intellectual distinction, Obama has also woven into his team the greatest political experience of any cabinet in memory. No less than five of the men and women at the table will have served in the U.S. Senate (Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, Ken Salazar); four have been in the House (Rahm Emmanuel, Bill Richardson, Ray LaHood, Hilda Solis); three have been governors (Janet Napolitano, Tom Vilsack, Bill Richardson), and one was a big city mayor (Ron Kirk). In short, 12 of 21 will have successfully run for far more than sheriff.

Does this array of talent and experience ensure success? Not at all. For starters, there are also some holes in this team. Presidents normally look for cabinet officers among leaders who have run big organizations because most executive departments are huge. With the economy sinking and reputations shredded on Wall Street, it is not surprising that Obama hasn’t filled his cabinet with CEOs but not even one? There are some with serious experience in running things – Bob Gates, retired General Eric Shinski and the governors among them. Overall, however, the Obama team is light on administrative experience. They may be great at making policy but will they be good at execution?

Given his campaign promises of post-partisanship, one might have expected Obama to appoint more than two Republicans, especially since Gates may be leaving soon and LaHood is in a transportation department that rarely has a strong voice. Whether his appointments and his governing approach will be enough to forge ties with the GOP – and whether they are prepared to grant him a real honeymoon – is yet to be seen.

Finally, veterans of past White Houses are also raising eyebrows over the number of “czars” popping up at the White House. Tom Daschle will wear two hats – one as HHS Secretary, the other as White House czar – and as such, he should be in an excellent position to lead the fight for health care reform. But cabinet officers in the areas of economics, energy, the environment, agriculture may struggle for power with “czars” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In short, Obama must still prove that his roster of all stars will become an effective working team. The early months of his presidency will be crucial for him. But overall, it can and should be said that at a full month before his inauguration, he has chosen one of the most promising cabinets in decades.

Brian Todd reports on a confirmation fight Senate Republicans seem willing to wage: Eric Holder's nomination.

Karl Rove
The Wall Street Journal

As he organizes his presidency, Barack Obama continues to receive glowing reviews. Three out of four Americans approve of how he's handling his transition.

But organizing and operating the White House will be a much bigger challenge than he can possibly yet understand.

Consider national security. Mr. Obama's team has the advantage of inheriting procedures and structures that stretch back to President Harry Truman's 1947 reforms, which created the National Security Council. But there's historically been tension over the roles of the national security adviser and secretary of state. How that tension is resolved depends largely on the able National Security Adviser-designate, James Jones.

Read More...

Carol Browner was one of four key environmental nominees named by Obama.

Arthur B. Laffer
The Wall Street Journal

This week in Chicago, President-elect Barack Obama introduced key members of his new energy and environmental team and gave a statement expressing his administration's ambitious goal to make America energy independent. While his desire to do so is sincere, such a strategy would be disastrous for our economy.

The platitude of "energy independence" makes zero economic sense. Yes, it's true that many nations that supply us with oil are run by anti-American governments. But unfortunately embargoes don't overturn despotic regimes. More often than not they harden them, as in Zimbabwe, North Korea and Cuba. Since the U.S. is so reliant on oil, embargoes will hurt the U.S. as much, if not more, than the countries of OPEC. The issue of how to handle the anti-American nature of oil-exporting nations is not for the Commerce Department, but for the White House, the State Department and perhaps the Department of Defense.

The U.S. currently imports some 60% of the oil we use. To imagine an energy-independent U.S. today is to envision gas at $20 or more per gallon and a true depression. President Dwight D. Eisenhower tried oil import tariffs in the 1950s, as has every president since. Yet never before has America's reliance on foreign oil been greater than it is now.

While energy independence for the U.S. would enormously increase the price of oil at home, it would have the exact opposite effect in the rest of the world. Cheap oil for countries like China would surely not benefit the U.S. or the world's environment. Businesses that use oil would move offshore, costing American jobs while still polluting the world's environment. Artificial energy independence is neither a good foreign policy nor a good domestic economic policy.

Read More...

Sen. Ken Salazar is Obama's choice for secretary of the interior.

Bradford Plumer
The New Republic

If the news reports are accurate, Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado has been tapped by Barack Obama to head up the Department of Interior. Let's hope he knows what he's getting into. After the last eight years, the Interior Department has become fairly dysfunctional, and this may end up being one of the most difficult jobs in the Obama administration-not to mention one that gets remarkably little attention.

Looking back historically, the Interior Department has been a mess from the very beginning. It was created in 1849 essentially to handle the government's odds and ends, from exploring the West to conducting the decennial census to managing the D.C. jail system, and quickly became a massive patronage reservoir: Walt Whitman was famously fired from the department in 1866 by a reformer secretary trying to weed out sinecures. The public-land giveaways in the 1890s were frequently plagued by fraud–a precursor to the Teapot Dome scandal under Warren Harding–and the Indian Bureau has been criticized for corruption and inefficiency for as long as anyone can remember.

Read More...

Arne Duncan listens Tuesday as President-elect Obama announces him as his choice for education secretary.

David Brody
CBN News

Obama’s new pick for Education secretary is Arne Duncan, head of Chicago Public Schools. He’s been pushing for Chicago to start their first gay high school. Not kidding.

Obama is going to get a lot of flack over this pick from social conservative groups and it wouldn’t surprise me if Republican Senators raise a fuss about this during his confirmation hearing. Mark my words. Read below from The Chicago Tribune:

The Chicago Public Schools' first high school designed for gay, lesbian and transgender teens is among 20 new schools recommended to the school board today by CPS Chief Arne Duncan.

The proposed schools range from technology-focused high schools to the School for Social Justice Pride Campus, which officials said would cater to but not focus exclusively on gay youth.

Backers said they envision a small high school offering a college-preparatory curriculum in which students would take four years each of English and math, three years each of foreign languages and science, as well as fine arts and physical education. It would be a performance school, meaning it would have the same staffing and oversight requirements as other district schools.

The announcement of the schools, which are expected to open in the fall of 2009 and 2010, took place at the Chicago International Charter School's Ralph Ellison Campus, 1817 W. 80th St. Public hearings on the proposed schools are expected before the Board of Education votes on them Oct. 22.

"If you look at national studies, you see gay and lesbian students with high dropout rates...Studies show they are disproportionately homeless," Duncan said. "I think there is a niche there we need to fill."

Supporters have said the Pride Campus would help students find a safe school environment because studies have shown that gay youth are at a greater risk of dropping out of school and abusing drugs and alcohol, and are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide. A 2003 district survey shows that gay and lesbian youths are three times more likely to miss school because they don't feel safe.

Opponents have called the move a misuse of public funds. At a recent public hearing on the proposal, some gay rights advocates have said the move would segregate these students and said the district should work more on fostering acceptance by mainstream students, teachers and other school officials.

Read More...